Associated Press/U.S. Naval AcademyRetired Vice Admiral James Calvert, a Cleveland native and World War II hero, served as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy from 1968 to 1972. This undated photo was released by the Academy.

James Francis Calvert (1920-2009)

Survivors: Wife, the former Margaretta Harrison Battle; six sons, Dr. James Jr. of Klamath Falls, Ore., Charles of Bellevue, Wash., Craig Battle of Princeton, N.J., David Battle of Suffield, Conn., John Battle of Sag Harbor, N.Y., and Kemp Battle of West Shokan, N.Y.; 15 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren

Jim Calvert, who died Wednesday at age 88, went from sweeping cottages beside Lake Erie to leading the first submarine that surfaced at the North Pole.

The Cleveland native was also a World War II hero and the youngest superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy to that point. He set records for the fastest Atlantic crossing and the longest stretch under water.

Despite venturing into restricted areas of postwar Tokyo and nearly getting court-martialed, Calvert rose to vice admiral. He published two memoirs about his wartime and polar accomplishments.

Calvert died from heart failure at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"There is not a finer man in the Navy," Captain Joseph Enright, an admiral's chief of staff, once said of Calvert.

"Vice Admiral Calvert embodied the highest ideals of the Academy's mission," Annapolis' current superintendent, Vice Admiral Jeffrey Fowler, said Thursday. "He completed nine wartime patrols and later served an instrumental role in the development of modern submarine operations."

Calvert's chestful of medals featured two Silver Stars, the first two peacetime Navy Unit Commendations, and the French Legion of Honor. At different times, he led the Pentagon's Politico-Military Division of Naval Operations and commanded all the nuclear subs in the Atlantic.

The Depression helped to put Calvert to sea. He was born in Glenville and raised partly in Lorain, but hard times left his father managing cottages in Mitiwanga, Ohio, with help from his only child.

Calvert graduated from Berlin Heights High School and went to Oberlin College, hoping to become a doctor. But, despite waiting tables and washing pots, he ran short of money. So he applied to Annapolis. He was rejected in 1938 and accepted in 1939.

Some of Oberlin's idealism lingered.

"The world does not quite work the way Oberlin suggests it did," he once told The Plain Dealer, "but it would be a lot better world if it did."

War broke out, and Calvert's class graduated from Annapolis in three years instead of the usual four. He finished 105th out of 650.

He felt that submarines were the future of naval warfare. He persuaded the brass to let him and some mates go straight to submarine school without the usual topside duty.

He served in nine war patrols, eight of them as an officer on the USS Jack, renowned for torpedoing Japanese ships near and far, sometimes a remarkable 5,000 yards or so away.

Working solo, the Jack once riddled a convoy, whose commodore reported being attacked by a "wolfpack of submarines." The sub became known as Jack the Pack.

Calvert later commanded the USS Haddo and watched Japan surrender.

Soon the curious officer and some crewmates spent hours AWOL in the Japanese countryside. They were caught and ordered to trial, but a higher-up freed them because of Calvert's long heroism.

Calvert helped take the atomic age from the sky to the depths. With nuclear power, submarines no longer had to surface like whales.

He commanded the USS Skate through perilous voyages under and through Arctic ice in 1958 and 1959. The Skate was the second vessel to reach the North Pole and the first to surface there.

Calvert later served in the Mediterranean, then led Annapolis from 1968 to 1972.

Despite the Vietnam War, applications soared under his helm, according to Bill Hogan of Chagrin Falls, Calvert's special assistant there. The superintendent started the academy's computer courses and optional majors (a couple dozen of them).

"He was very calm," said Hogan. "He asked a lot of good questions. He would tell you what he wanted accomplished, and then he'd let you go do it."

Calvert retired from the Navy in 1973. He became assistant to Texaco's chairman, vice president of Combustion Engineering in Stamford, Conn., and chairman of Aqua-Chem in Milwaukee.

His first wife, Annapolis native Nancy King, died in 1965. He married Peggy Harrison Battle in 1968.

He outlived his only daughter, Margaret Ann Calvert, and lost his parents fairly young. He had no known survivors in Ohio, but remained a lifelong fan of the Indians and the Browns.

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